Dev log — hiignite | Building a coaching platform in public

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Oct 2, 2026

hiignite is live on both stores

The client app is on the App Store and Google Play. What slowed it down: Apple's review feedback, and the EU trader status you have to verify before your app shows up in EU storefronts at all.

Aug 26, 2026

The migration problem isn't the data

I asked a coach what would actually stop him switching platforms. I expected data export. His answer was finding exercise videos for the uncommon movements he programmes.

Aug 19, 2026

Getting Google out of the page load

Altcha instead of reCAPTCHA, self-hosted Umami instead of Analytics, fonts off the CDN. Why the font swap is the one people miss — and why it's faster now anyway.

Aug 5, 2026

Why I built the API in Rust when it wasn't the optimal choice

Slower to write than anything I already knew, and a compiler that won't let me cut corners. The honest reasoning behind picking Rust for a solo project.

Jul 26, 2026

Why our TypeScript types come from Rust

Specta generates the client types from the API's own Rust structs, so the mobile app and web dashboard can't drift from what the API actually returns.

Jun 24, 2026

Six months building hiignite: Rust, Expo, and one typed contract

Mobile app, web dashboard and API as one monorepo — why Rust and Axum for the API, and the Specta-generated type contract that killed mobile/web mismatch bugs.